litter

300 Million Golf Balls Lost or Discarded in US Each Year, Each Needing 100 to 1000 Years to Decompose

Digital Citizen 2 Comments

Ball-hawk-collectionChristina MacFarlane of CNN reports that 300 million balls are lost or discarded in the United States every year! There were no numbers for world estimates, but you can bet it’s a lot because there are a lot of countries in which golf is being played. I think double the 300 million, would be a conservative estimate. The US might like to play “us versus the world” in those team golf tournaments like the Ryder Cup, but that doesn’t mean they have half the golf players, courses and balls in the world.

Furthermore, each golf ball is estimated to require 100 to 1000 years to decompose naturally. This is according to simulations done by research teams at the Danish Golf Union. It had to be simulations because the golf balls of today haven’t been around 100 years.

In case you don’t think golf ball pollution is a problem, though, scientists who scoured the depths of Scotland’s Loch Ness in a submarine recently, hoping to discover evidence of the prehistoric Loch Ness monster, found hundreds of thousands of golf balls lining the bed of the loch!

That’s hundreds of thousands of golf balls!

Maybe the golf fanatics know about golfing around Loch Ness, but I sure as heck didn’t think there was that much golfing around there. At least not so close that hundreds of thousands of golf balls would be in the lake. It’s not like everybody shoots with the range of Tiger Woods, and even then, that’s not that far to get a golf ball into the loch!

Given the pollution of that magnitude, the poor monster is probably dead from either being pelted by stray golf balls, or having swallowed some in searching for food and picking up large morsels of things at the bottom.

Unfortunately, the pollution of golf balls is not just the presence of those balls. What’s in them is very bad for the environment.

The Danish Golf Association has found that during decomposition, the golf balls dissolved to release a high quantity of heavy metals. Dangerous levels of zinc were found in the synthetic rubber filling used in solid core golf balls. When submerged in water, the zinc attached itself to the ground sediment and poisoned the surrounding flora and fauna. Then, removing a partially degraded ball from a lake or woodland area could result in further damage to the wildlife. It’s not all that simple as picking them up, though a few hundred thousand under water could be rather difficult.

So what can we do about the golf balls? Well, the easiest thing would be to stop playing golf. Golf balls are the least of golf’s environmental impact. Look at these statistics about golf courses from 2004… never mind 2009.

1.8 million kg of an arsenic-containing pesticide, monosodium methanearsonate (MSMA), banned in India and Indonesia, is applied every year to golf courses and cotton fields in the US to control weeds

2.5 billion gallons – Amount of water it would take, per day, to support 4.7 billion people at the UN daily minimum, or the amount of water used, per day, to irrigate the world’s golf courses

23 – Number of golf courses in Japan before World War II
3,030 – Number in operation or soon to open in 2004

8.2 kg – Average amount of pesticides used per acre, per year, on golf courses (18.0 lbs), compared to just 2.7 kg (1.2 kg) used in the same time and space for agriculture (667% difference)

6,500 cubic metres (6.5 million litres) – Amount of water used by 60,000 villagers in Thailand, on average, per day, or one golf course in Thailand, on average, per day

150,000 acres – Current area of the wetlands of the Colorado River Delta, which now receives just 0.1 percent of the river water that once flowed through it, or the area that could be covered to a depth of 2 feet with water drawn from the Colorado River by the city of Las Vegas, which uses much of that allotment to water its more than 60 golf courses

Don’t forget all the travel, whether vacation or golf carts, involved and the emissions from it!

Really, is golf really worth all that?

Sure, the golf fanatics would say yes. But what if I were to tell you some other sport had that impact? Or every other sport out there had it since why put it on just one sport? Would you allow people to play that sport then?

But on the golf balls pollution issue, UK law maker Patrick Harvie had this advice:

“Keep your balls on the fairway or invest in a stock of biodegradable balls.”

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 7.1

Share/Bookmark

Random Acts of Kindness Challenge: A Facebook 2.0 Picture Tagging Meme

Digital Citizen 1 Comment

Here’s a Facebook picture tagging meme that will allow you to make a difference in the world while having fun! It’s for the real people who live life in the real world, not Facebook addicts stuck in the virtual world.

The potential of social media like Facebook and the Web 2.0 is its ability to organize people. However, there’s a lot of doubt about it because of how people use it a lot for games like traditional themed Facebook tagging memes. Nobody gets up to do anything to make difference in the world with them, and might even annoy some people.

I had tried to evolve these Facebook picture tagging memes previously with versions like Should Try and Dare to Wear, where you have to do something to fulfill them rather than just tag someone to a picture. However, this Random Acts of Kindness challenge is even better because there is a true benefit with each action taken by someone. They are also practical, costing either just a little bit of money or time. Best of all, they’ll make you feel good about yourself, and someone else feel good about life and the world!

So are you up for the challenge to tag it on and recruit your friends to make the world a better place?

Here’s how to get this graphic for your Facebook contribution to a better world:

  • Click on the picture below to get it at full size.
  • Right click on that picture and save to your computer.
  • Upload it to your Facebook profile.
  • Tag your friends!
  • Click the Back button on your browser to return to this post.

Please click here for a complete list of over 100 Facebook picture tagging memes on this site with which you can use for fun with your friends.


You may wish to hand out or leave a card with your random act of kindness (click to enlage, save and print out), although it is not customary to do so.

  • Cover another rider’s fare. The next time you’re on the bus, find someone who doesn’t have a pass and offer to pay so they can save their ticket or change.
  • Run an errand for someone. You’ll probably need to know the person/s because there is some trust required here, but your time is more valuable than your money.
  • Leave quarters at a pay phone. You can leave it on top of the phone or tape it to a RAK card.
  • Make goodie basket for seniors home. Unless you know someone at the home, it’s probably best to just buy some things because for safety’s sake, they will be cautious to take gifts out of the blue from strangers. Such is the world in which we live.
  • Make or buy lunch for a homeless person. If you don’t want to create expectations, you might want to do this where you don’t walk frequently.
  • Plug a parking meter. If you can afford more than a few dollars, you can plug the whole block! It’s even funner if you pick a busy block and make a scene. 🙂
  • Refuse to pay for a task. We all do things that people give us money for from time to time. Refuse it the next time. Or volunteer one of your professional skills.
  • Leave an extra large tip. Remember, 15% is the standard tipping rate. Make it at least 25%, eh?
  • Show up to volunteer at a building project. This may not be easy to find, especially if you live in cold weather during winter, but often, there are a lot of simple labour jobs anyone showing up can do. Just ask and they’ll probably let you. They may keep you safe away from the action, but if it’s menial, do you think those paid to do it enjoy it any more than you would?
  • Buy someone lottery tickets. This is risky cause if they win, you could feel bad. But RAKs aren’t about that. Besides, how often do you get to look someone in the eye and say “Do you feel lucky today?”
  • Pick up litter on your block. You can do this all year round, not just when tagged on Facebook, and it has real value to everyone who goes through. Better yet, organize a small group to do this regularly.
  • Make baked goods for a shelter. Shelters don’t often get home made stuff, just things out of cans and so on. Baked goods would be a nice surprise treat for people if you deliver it directly, bringing ID if they don’t know you. I’ve heard baked goods are not liked by shelters because they don’t know their origins, freshness state and so on, and that’s true if they get it in a box. But if you come with a smile on your face, and ID if they want to check, I’m sure they’ll love you for it.

You can search “random acts of kindness” for other ideas, but what I found was that a lot of them were either impractical (visit a nursing home where they won’t likely let strangers in), may not satisfy someone (giving candies to kids whose Parents are trying to teach them discipline or prevent cavities), or are just expected out of good citizens (donate seat on bus to elderly).

Share